| --- |
| title: "House Oversight: Estate Documents (Nov 12) (HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_015028)" |
| source: "House Oversight: Estate Documents (Nov 12)" |
| sourceUrl: "https://oversight.house.gov" |
| date: "2026-01-01" |
| category: "House Oversight" |
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| externalLicense: "US Government work (public domain, 17 U.S.C. sec. 105)" |
| externalCredit: "House Oversight Committee, official estate production" |
| externalUrl: "https://oversight.house.gov" |
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| |
| Could U.S. case against sex offender Jeffrey Epstein be reopened? |
| http://www.mypalmbeachpost.com/news/crime--law/fight-reopen-teen-s... |
| 1 of 4 9/27/2017, 12:04 AM |
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| By Jane Musgrave - Palm Beach Post Staff Writer |
| 34 |
| UMA SANGHVI |
| Jeffrey Epstein, the wealthy Palm Beach resident charged with having teenage girls give him sexual massages, pleaded guilty to |
| prostitution solicitation charges in Palm Beach County Circuit Court on June 20, 2008. (Uma Sanghvi / The Palm Beach Post) |
| Posted: 8:00 a.m. Saturday, August 26, 2017 |
| WEST PALM BEACH — Nearly 10 years after billionaire Jeffrey Epstein signed a plea deal that let him |
| escape federal prosecution on charges of sexually abusing dozens of teenage girls at his Palm Beach |
| mansion, the 64-year-old politically-connected money manager faces the possibility that the agreement |
| could be thrown out. |
| In court papers filed this month, attorneys representing two of the 30 young women prosecutors say |
| Epstein molested lodged their final written pleas aimed at spurring U.S. District Judge Kenneth Marra |
| to force federal officials to reopen their investigation into the sordid case. |
| U.S. government lawyers in September will have |
| another chance to defend themselves against allegations that they violated the federal Crime Victims’ |
| Rights Act by failing to alert Epstein’s victims of the terms of what some describe as a “sweetheart |
| deal.” Marra could make a decision as early as this fall. |
| The stakes for all crime victims are high, said attorneys Bradley Edwards and Paul Cassell, who filed |
| the rare lawsuit against the federal government on behalf of two Jane Does who were 13 and 14 when |
| they claim Epstein paid them for sex. |
| If Marra dismisses the lawsuit, “then the government will never have to give any information in any |
| Could U.S. case against sex offender Jeffrey Epstein be reopened? |
| http://www.mypalmbeachpost.com/news/crime--law/fight-reopen-teen-s... |
| 2 of 4 9/27/2017, 12:04 AM |
| case to any victim,” they wrote, urging him to uphold the provisions of the 13-year-old federal law. |
| At the same time, the stakes are equally high for Epstein, who has ferried President Bill Clinton on his |
| private jet and counts celebrities, such as Britain’s Prince Andrew, as friends. |
| Marra has already ruled that if he finds that federal prosecutors violated the act, he will consider |
| throwing out the plea deal that Epstein signed with federal prosecutors in 2007. Miami attorney Roy |
| Black, one of dozens of high-profile lawyers who has represented Epstein, claims that would be |
| manifestly unfair. |
| As part of the unusual non-prosecution agreement, which wasn’t shared with victims for nearly a year |
| while and after it was being negotiated, federal prosecutors agreed not to pursue charges that could |
| have sent Epstein to prison for life. In exchange, Epstein in 2008 pleaded guilty in Palm Beach County |
| Circuit Court to two Florida criminal charges — one count each of soliciting a minor for prostitution and |
| soliciting prostitution. He served 13 months of an 18-month sentence in a vacant wing of the county |
| stockade — a cell he was allowed to leave 16 hours a day, six days a week. |
| Epstein, who now spends most of his time on his private island in the U.S. Virgin Islands, also is |
| required to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life. In addition, as part of the plea deal, he paid |
| roughly 30 women, who were identified by prosecutors as his victims, undisclosed amounts of money |
| to settle civil lawsuits they had filed against him. |
| To throw out the deal after Epstein has been punished would rob him of his constitutional right to due |
| process, Black wrote in court papers. “If a defendant lives up to his end of the bargain, the government |
| is bound to perform its promises,” he wrote, quoting a prior court decision. |
| However, Edwards and Cassell claim that because federal prosecutors didn’t confer with their clients |
| about the plea deal before it was made, they violated the law and that makes the non-prosecution |
| agreement illegal. They cited examples where plea deals have been invalidated after judges later |
| found prosecutors violated the crime victims’ rights law. |
| In most of the cases they cited, the mistakes were the result of oversights. But Edward and Cassell |
| wrote, “The undisputed facts of this case prove that, rather than forthrightly discharging its obligations |
| to numerous child sexual assault victims, the government chose to enter into a secret deal with the |
| man who had victimized them.” |
| Federal prosecutors have said they didn’t reveal the terms of the non-prosecution agreement because |
| they feared Epstein and his high-powered attorneys were trying to circumvent it. Still, Edwards and |
| Cassell, said there was no justification for the secrecy. |
| “The government’s conduct here was particularly egregious, because it repeatedly found time to confer |
| with attorneys for Epstein — the man who sexually abused the victims,” they said of emails and |
| meetings between federal prosecutors, including U.S. Labor Secretary Alex Acosta, who was then |
| U.S. attorney for South Florida. |
| In an affidavit, Edwards said Assistant U.S. Attorney Marie Villafana, who was handling Epstein’s case, |
| had numerous chances to tell him and the young women he represented about the non-prosecution |
| agreement. Instead, four months after the agreement was signed in September 2007, federal officials |
| wrote victims letters, assuring them the case was still under investigation. |
| “This can be a lengthy process and we request your continued patience while we conduct a thorough |
| investigation,” officials wrote in a January 2008 letter to Edwards’ clients. |
| In court papers, Villafana said she alerted Edwards the day before Epstein was to plead guilty in circuit |
| court, hoping that Edwards, his clients and other alleged victims would attend the hearing. But |
| Edwards said neither he nor the young women had any idea that the plea in state court meant Epstein |
| wouldn’t be prosecuted for federal crimes. |
| “The victims (and their attorneys) could hardly have expected that the prosecutors and the man who |
| had sexually abused them would be working together to conceal an arrangement that would prevent |
| his prosecution for crimes against them,” Edwards and Cassell wrote. |
| While Judge Marra could allow a jury to decide the complex case, prosecutors are asking him to toss |
| the women’s lawsuit and end the litigation. |
| Could U.S. case against sex offender Jeffrey Epstein be reopened? |
| http://www.mypalmbeachpost.com/news/crime--law/fight-reopen-teen-s... |
| 3 of 4 9/27/2017, 12:04 AM |
| Edwards and Cassell instead want him to rule that prosecutors violated the Crime Victims’ Rights Act. |
| Once that determination is made, Marra could then decide what remedies to impose, the two lawyers |
| argue. |
| Under the act, neither of their clients can seek “damages” from the government but the attorneys have |
| suggested Marra could order the government to pay the women restitution, impose a monetary |
| sanction and pay their legal fees. |
| Still, Cassell insisted: “This isn’t about money, it’s about justice.” |
| Cassell, who is a law professor at the University of Utah, said the case is being watched closely by |
| victims’ rights advocates along with federal lawmakers who pushed the legislation through Congress |
| and have publicly questioned prosecutors’ handling of Epstein’s case. |
| A decision ordering federal prosecutors to reopen the investigation could establish a national |
| precedent, he said. “It will be a big win for the victims,” Cassell said. “That’s the way we look at it.” |
| About the Author |
| JANE MUSGRAVE |
| ADVERTISER CONTENT: Rebif |
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| Could U.S. case against sex offender Jeffrey Epstein be reopened? |
| http://www.mypalmbeachpost.com/news/crime--law/fight-reopen-teen-s... |
| 4 of 4 9/27/2017, 12:04 AM |
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